Curse of Lethe (alternate chapters)
by shiiki
Summary: These are milder versions of the M-rated chapters in The Curse of Lethe, rewritten to stay under a T rating and to remove references to the content that I warned for in the main fic. Only the complementary chapters to the affected chapters will be posted here.
1. Chapter 11

**A/N** : This is a 'clean' version of chapter 11 of the Curse of Lethe, specially for **CupcakeQueen816** and any of my readers who are uncomfortable with reading material of a higher rating.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

 **XI**

 **THALIA**

If it hadn't been for the ledge, Thalia would probably be dead. As it was, she hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind straight out of her. But the fall—maybe twenty feet or so—wasn't deadly. She didn't even seem to have broken any bones, although pain flared through her joints as they absorbed the shock of her landing.

Thank Artemis she still had her teenage body, with its youthful resistance to serious injury. She had a feeling that at her true age, her bones should have been more brittle.

Grassy debris rained down, scattering around her the earth that had crumbled in Percy's Eris-induced landslide. A few feet away, Nico groaned. He and Will had landed in a heap—it looked as though Nico had actually broken Will's fall—and his ankle seemed to have borne the brunt of the impact. His foot was twisted in an awkward angle.

Will rolled to the side and sat up.

'Don't _think_ it's broken,' gasped Nico.

'No,' Will agreed, putting one hand out to feel it. 'A really bad sprain, though. A couple of snapped ligaments.'

He started to concentrate, but Nico knocked his hand away. 'No. You've already stretched your healing powers to the limit. You need to save your energy. Just use—' He stopped and looked blankly around them for Will's supplies.

'My pack's gone,' Will said. 'I think it fell…' He waved his hand at the drop-off.

Thalia sighed. Great.

Will pursed his lips. 'Never mind. I'll improvise.'

While Will set to work fashioning a crutch for Nico out of his jacket and a few of Thalia's arrows, she tried to assess their situation.

They were on a narrow, rocky ledge no more than six feet wide. It was a miracle they'd even hit it instead of tumbling all the way down to the bottom. Thalia couldn't tell how far the cliff extended downwards.

Although they couldn't be that far from the top, it was shrouded in darkness. She couldn't even see three feet up the cliff face. The rock was smooth as bone, with no outcroppings or indents. Unscalable. The only crack in it was a split that started a few inches above her head and ran down vertically, widening into a two-foot gap from her waist down.

Thalia contemplated using her arrows. If she could shove them into the rock face, they might be able to etch a route up. Experimentally, she stabbed one at the rock. It struck with a dull clang that reverberated in her ears like the hunting bells Artemis used to confuse prey—a magical echo that muffled all other sound and dulled the senses of their quarry.

'What in Hades?' she muttered.

The arrow hadn't made even the slightest notch in the black bone. Maybe if she fired it from her bow…except the ledge was too narrow for her to get a good shooting angle.

Thalia gave up the idea. Nico wasn't in any shape to climb, anyway.

She gritted her teeth in frustration.

Will looked up from his work. He'd strapped up Nico's foot and managed to cobble together a thin stick from the shaft of several arrows, held together by strips of leather. Nico leaned on it cautiously. It twisted a little under the strain, but bore his weight nonetheless.

'We need to get back up there,' Nico said. His voice sounded hazy and distorted through the echo of arrow against cliff. 'We left Percy and Annabeth with Eris.'

Thalia decided not to mention that _Percy_ had sent them plunging out of the fight. It was Eris's fault anyway. She looked guiltily at Nico, whom Eris had egged her into attacking. 'That was her strategy, wasn't it? Divide and conquer.'

Would she succeed with Percy and Annabeth, too?

Before, Thalia would have said it was impossible, that no force on earth—or below it—could have made Percy turn on Annabeth. But this new Percy, she wasn't so sure of. He was all the power commanded by the son of a Big Three and none of the heart. Colder, more suspicious— _less Seaweed, more Brain,_ she thought ruefully.

The image of Percy's face, contorted with hatred as he plunged his sword into the ground, blended into an older memory. Another cliff, another fight, a different boy.

The same twisted anger.

 _Luke's expression gives way to desperation and a softer, pleading look. And then he topples from the cliff—at her hand—and falls, and falls, and falls…_

Thalia shook the memory away. It had been nearly a decade ago. Why was she still thinking about it?

Percy, she reminded herself. Percy was supposed to be different. He wasn't supposed to turn hard and angry and traitorous like Luke had.

Artemis would have said, ' _What can you expect from men?_ '

But it was Reyna's voice Thalia heard in her head instead. ' _It doesn't matter who hurt or betrayed you. We don't define ourselves by what men do to us, but what we choose to do to ourselves._ '

For someone so young, that girl had a lot of wisdom and a yard of guts.

Thalia wondered what Reyna would do if she'd been the one to come down here instead.

A shout from Will brought her back to the present.

'I think this leads somewhere.' He was peering into the narrow opening in the rock face. It was just wide enough for a thin person to crawl through.

It was also the only path with a remote possibility of getting them off this ledge.

'All right,' Thalia said. 'Lead the way.'

OoOoO

It made no sense whatsoever that it should be brighter inside the rock than out on the open ledge. But Thalia had long since given up trying to wrap her mind around the physics of Tartarus.

After they crawled through the gap in the cliff wall, they found themselves in a narrow passageway that widened into a tunnel barely high enough for them to walk upright. The cave walls were coated in a filmy grey substance that bathed them in a hazy light. It was brighter than the inky darkness outside, but also foggier, like they were trudging through industrial smog.

Thalia ran her hand along the wall. It didn't feel like rock. The surface was slick and slimy, and it pulsated beneath her fingers. She pulled her hand away quickly with a hiss of revulsion.

'What is it?' Will asked.

'It's…gross.' She shuddered. 'Feels like we're inside a monster's—'

'Don't,' said Nico darkly. 'For your own sanity, _don't_ follow that thought to its conclusion.'

Will changed the subject. 'Where do you think this leads?'

'Not a clue,' Thalia said. She could no more fathom the geography of Tartarus than she could its physics.

'It feels familiar,' Nico said.

'Reminds me of the Labyrinth,' Will agreed. 'Same twisting tunnels.'

Nico shook his head. 'I think this might be the way I was…' A shiver ran through his body, '…taken.' He swallowed hard. 'By Gaia's forces. To the heart of Tartarus.'

Thalia suppressed a groan. 'Why does that sound ominous?'

'It's not,' Nico said. 'Not a bad thing, I mean. That's the only place the Doors of Death can anchor down here. It's where we'd have to go eventually. Percy and Annabeth—if they survive—will have to get there, too. We just have to hope we'll meet up.'

It sounded like a long shot, but what better idea did they have?

The tunnel sloped downwards, which Nico also declared a good sign. After a while, they heard the sound of running water. Another positive, according to Nico. 'Everything flows to the heart of Tartarus.'

Thalia hoped it might be the Phlegethon, carving an underground path through the rock. Then she decided she was definitely going crazy if she was hoping to meet the River of Fire.

They needed it, though. None of them had been in great shape to begin with, not after the attack of the _arai_ , and the cave smog was clogging up their lungs now, making them labour for every breath.

The trickle of water got louder. An orange glow appeared in the distance, like a lantern on a foggy moor.

Their tunnel opened up into a warmly lit cavern. The ceiling made a low dome several feet above their heads, dotted with glittering amber gemstones. These were embedded along the cavern walls as well, giving it its dim glow. Their tunnel wasn't the only entrance; there were at least eight other openings leading in. Two had streams trickling through, which cut across the cavern. Each divided into two branches. One of the four divided branches merged with one from the other stream to form a single line that snaked around the far edge of the cavern and ran out along a different tunnel. The remaining two streams ran in a parallel, faster flow out another exit.

'Maybe one is the Phlegethon?' But even as she said it, Thalia heard the faint, watery wail of misery that marked a different river.

'The Cocytus,' Nico said grimly. 'And the other is the Lethe.'

They hobbled along the cavern edge, careful to avoid the rivers.

'Which tunnel do we pick, then?' Will asked, peering at the multiple openings in the cavern wall.

'That depends,' said a low, gravelly voice, 'on where you want to go.'

Out of the cavern entrance between the two rivers came a stooped figure shuffling slowly towards them. He moved sluggishly, hunched over a staff that supported his laborious steps.

'Demigods,' he said. 'So…young.'

He was a shrivelled old hunchback with a tiny, withered body. His mottled skin was cut so deep with wrinkles that it resembled a patchwork quilt stitched together by an uneven hand. The loose skin on his face hung revoltingly in a floppy wattle beneath his chin.

'Who are you?' Thalia demanded.

'Oh, you know me,' said the old man. 'Everybody knows me. No one escapes me, in the end.'

He leered at them, revealing three crooked teeth in a maw of diseased gums.

'Stay where you are,' said Nico. 'Not a step closer, old man!'

'Old man?' The old geezer's mouth formed a tight, angry line. His eyes gleamed dangerously, going from milky white to a bloodshot pink.

'I don't like this,' whispered Will.

They backed away quickly towards the nearest tunnel. At least the dude's approach was slow, hampered by his reliance on his staff.

'Old man,' he repeated. 'Let's see how _you_ like old age, young ones.'

The air of the cavern thickened until it felt like they were wading through honey. Thalia had once been in the presence of Kronos when he had manipulated time itself, and it was exactly like the Titan of time was taking control now, with everything slowing to a snail's pace.

Except when she looked at her friends, time also seemed to be speeding up. With each step they took, they seemed to gain ten years. Their faces drooped; lines etched themselves in the corners of their eyes and mouths; their shoulders hunched forward despondently.

Thalia put a hand to her own cheek. Although her movements were sluggish, her skin still felt supple and smooth.

Of course— _she_ couldn't age.

'You're Geras, aren't you?' she said.

The old man kept plodding towards them with a smug, satisfied look on his weather-beaten face.

Nodding slowly, he said, 'Behold my power—no man escapes my scourge.'

Caught in his spell, Will and Nico's bodies were becoming nearly as shrivelled as Geras's. Their mouths hung open listlessly. They seemed incapable of producing coherent speech.

If this kept up, would they age all the way to death?

'Stop!' Thalia cried. She racked her brain for anything she could remember about the god of old age. 'Aren't you—aren't you supposed to be a _good_ god? I mean, that's what the ancient Greeks believed, right? You were supposed to bring fame and excellence to the elderly.'

Geras gave a loud, phlegmy harrumph. 'Once,' he growled. 'Once I was respected, revelled. Once I conferred wisdom and experience along with wrinkles and osteoporosis. My gifts were once coveted as a crown of maturity.'

As he spoke, the ceiling of his cavern came to life to illustrate his words. White-bearded men in togas presided over a court while young courtiers served them fruit and wine. Youths kneeled and kissed the feet of iron-haired grandmothers.

'And then what happened?' Geras waved his hand and the paean to senescence morphed into pitiful scenes of degradation. A decrepit old beggar was spat on while he huddled in the doorway of a building. Children giggled and made faces at a wrinkled old crone as she hobbled laboriously along the sidewalk. Four vacant-eyed octogenarians sat around a bingo table in a drab nursing home, staring listlessly at the game cards in front of them.

'Demoted by gods and mortals alike. Banished and forgotten. Cast down to Tartarus to rot while they celebrated that slut Hebe instead. No honour. No respect.' He glared at Nico, whose hair had gone snow-white by now, but fortunately seemed to have otherwise stopped ageing while Geras focused on Thalia.

Then Geras's sinister, gap-toothed smile returned. 'But I get my revenge, don't I? I wither all, crumbling your bodies to dust, drawing night across your eyes and turning them milky with age. Perhaps you do not respect me. But you _will_ fear me.'

'But we do respect you!' Thalia said quickly. 'If anyone appreciates old age, it's demigods. I mean, think how many of us die young.'

She couldn't even count the number of friends who had fallen before they'd had a chance to grow old. She thought of the gamble they'd taken in coming down here, trying to give Percy that chance. Her mind flitted again to Luke, cut down in the prime of his life. Once, they'd met a demigod in his sixties and marvelled at his longevity. She remembered thinking, _what if that could be us, too?_ What if they'd both had a chance to grow old together, without being dogged by monsters and prophecies?

She'd sidestepped death _and_ ageing, but she sometimes wondered what it might be like if she'd remained mortal. Would she look like Reyna and Annabeth, with their knowledge and experience written across their faces? What would it be like to grow old alongside them?

'Hmph,' Geras said. 'What's your name, girl?'

'Thalia.'

'I knew a Thalia once.' Geras looked slightly less grumpy. 'Daughter of an old friend. Used to be quite fond of her.' His face darkened again. 'But that was before. When I had a place on Olympus. Before everyone decided old age was to be avoided.'

On the ceiling, pictures appeared of middle-aged ladies injecting botox into their faces and rich men undergoing liposuction. Geras looked at them in disgust. 'Mortals are cheating left and right these days—they'd rather tango with Thanatos than come quietly to me.'

One of the men bled out on the operating table, dead in his attempt to regain his youthful physique. Thalia shifted her weight uncomfortably, acutely aware of her own age-defying appearance. Geras didn't seem to have noticed yet that she hadn't turned as decrepit as her companions.

'So they wish to keep their youthful appearances,' Geras sneered. 'But there is plenty more I can steal.' He spread his fingers along the cavern wall and the gemstones embedded in it moved aside to make room for a glowing five-by-five grid. Rosy pink cheeks appeared in one square; in another, a network of dots connected by blindingly white lines.

'Health…' said Geras, 'cognitive ability…vitality…'

Each lit-up square condensed into a gem as Geras spoke. He regarded them with smug satisfaction.

'They're actual qualities,' Thalia said. Horror and fascination flooded her as she stared at the gems in the wall. 'You're taking all of that from people—their health, their minds—' All squirrelled away into his despicable collection, leaving their owners stricken with illness, impotence, and dementia.

'I collect the years of mortal life.' Geras filled a horizontal row with gems and drew his finger across it like he was playing a ghoulish game of bingo. The gems sank into the cavern rock and the line he'd drawn through the squares solidified into a long silver rod.

'What else have I got to entertain me in this infernal pit?' he growled. 'Here at the confluence of Cocytus and Lethe. Bah! If they want old age to be synonymous with misery and senility, that's exactly what they'll get.'

Geras touched his rod to the ceiling. A butterfly cloud blossomed from its end and splattered across the domed surface. The rod transfigured into a remote, which Geras aimed at the ceiling. Above their heads played a video of a girl in a cap and gown walking up the steps to a stage.

'Is that…?'

'A memory, of course,' said Geras. His eyes followed the graduate across the stage, watching her receive her diploma. 'I have an understanding with Mnemosyne. Alzheimer's they call it these days, I believe—such a wonderful affliction.'

With a practised flick, he cast his rod and discarded the memory into the stream on his left, which had to be the Lethe.

'You just—you took someone's memory!'

Geras shrugged. 'They'd wash out to Chaos in the end anyway. All I'm doing is hastening the process along. Sometimes I can even collect from early-onset years. Now _those_ make for great streaming quality.'

Like an expert fisherman, he cast into the Lethe again and reeled in a squirming silver fish. He flung it up to the ceiling and pressed play. This one featured a mother cradling her first child in her arms. Geras fished out another, and another—little moments of their owner's lives, strung together into a stream of experiences. The rapacious grin on his face as he watched the memories play out on his cave screen sickened Thalia. She could just imagine him holed away down here, binge-watching his stolen memory collection like it was a Friends marathon.

Then her mind snagged on the way he reeled in each memory. Geras was pulling _against_ the current.

'Where does the stream lead to?' she asked.

'Chaos, naturally.'

'And you're retrieving the memories from there? You can do that?'

'Of course. I am the son of Nyx herself, you know,' he said loftily. 'And this is my private channel. What's that they call it these days…pirating? High definition streaming, any time I want it.'

An idea began to form in Thalia's head. 'I'll strike a bargain with you,' she said quickly.

Geras snorted. 'What can you possibly have to bargain with me? I'll collect your years one way or another. No mortal can avoid me. You all come to me in the end, and those of you who don't…well, the dead don't bargain either, do they?'

'I'm not mortal.' This was a real gamble. If Geras hadn't caught on yet, he certainly would now, and given his attitude towards age-reduction plastic surgery, Thalia doubted he had much love for the immortally young Hunters. She'd have to keep his attention by dangling something he wanted in front of him instead. She hoped she'd read him right.

Geras squinted at her. 'Curse my eyesight! It's been getting worse by the millennium.' His filmy eyes finally focused on her tiara. 'One of Artemis's infernal Hunters. Cheats, all of you! Never ageing, always evading me. I should have known.' He stamped his rod on the ground in a rage. ' _That's_ why you're not responding to my powers. Well, maybe I can't get at _you_ , but them—' His head turned slowly back to Will and Nico.

'No, wait,' Thalia said firmly. 'You're mad that you'll never get to collect from me. But what if I _gave_ you something?'

'Keep talking.'

'The missing years. The ageing that never happened. What if I offered you those?'

 _Bingo,_ she thought, as Geras's eyes sparkled. He was clearly enticed by the idea of collecting a coveted, unreachable prize. She saw the glow of her own immortality reflected in his greedy gaze. It seemed to hang over her like a second skin. There were layers to them: the years of her childhood clung most tightly to her; her six years as a Hunter danced on the surface. Was that what Geras was drooling over now?

It made her skin crawl to think of the memories she could lose to Geras's video collection. But she had a hidden hand up her sleeve, if she could just play her cards right.

'I'll give you a year,' she bargained. 'In return, I want safe passage for me and my friends past your cavern.'

'That will cost more than one year.'

'Two, then.'

'Five.'

Thalia added quickly in her head. 'How about six, then?'

Geras's grin widened. She could see him mentally stripping off six years as a Hunter with his eyes.

'But I want one more thing, then. I want to know how you retrieve memories from Chaos.'

'Planning on putting together your own shows, eh? Just you wait—you'll be addicted to them soon enough.'

Thalia ignored his comment. 'Do we have a deal or not?'

'Deal,' said Geras. He touched his silver rod eagerly to her head.

Thalia ducked away. 'Swear on the Styx first. We pass through _and_ you show me how to retrieve memories.'

'I swear. On _all_ the rivers of Tartarus—oh, all right, Styx included. Safe passage for you lot and the key to memory retrieval. All for the bargain price of six years.' He was practically salivating now in his eagerness.

A deep rumble shook the cavern, sealing their bargain.

Geras pointed his rod at her again. This time, Thalia let him lift the ghostly shade of her years from her. She concentrated hard on feeding him the _right_ ones.

Geras didn't seem to notice anything amiss. The shades he fished off her took the shape of a teenage girl. It was a good thing Thalia hadn't looked all that different at fifteen than she had at twelve. Or maybe Geras was just myopic enough from his days of constantly streaming movies in a darkened cave that he couldn't discern the subtle differences that might have alerted him to the fact that he _wasn't_ extracting what he coveted.

The years lifted from her with a faint whiff of pine. Although Geras was removing them, Thalia felt instead like a mantle was falling over her shoulders. Her body seemed fuller, heavier, and—hang on, was she taller, too?

Geras wound the six Thalia-shades around his rod, then twirled the rod like a baton. The six years went flying like ninja stars and lodged into the cavern walls, six more gemstones in his vast collection. They were the verdant colour of a pine forest. Geras's eyes lingered on them as if he were itching to play the memories right there and then. Fortunately, he remembered to uphold his end of the bargain first.

'You can have this remote,' he said, handing her his rod. It weighed less than she expected, as though it were made of light, or thought. 'Fish as close to the source as you can, or else the buffering takes forever. It's easiest right at the edge of Chaos. Less drag.'

'Would I be able to return the memories to their owner?' She probably should have asked this first.

'Sure. I do it sometimes for kicks. The mortals get so confused when the addled old sundowners come lucid all of a sudden.'

Thalia tried not to let her disgust show.

'Anyway, if it's Chaos you're after, you'll want that tunnel.' He pointed. 'And…' With a careless wave of his free hand, Will and Nico unfroze. Thalia was relieved to see the scourge of age lift gradually from their faces. It was a bizarre reversal of time that would have put Benjamin Button to shame. Even Nico's bunged ankle caught the power of the rewind. He straightened, dropping his makeshift crutch.

Geras retreated into the tunnel between the rivers, probably to check out Thalia's gift in private. There wouldn't be much time before he realised she'd tricked him.

'Come on,' she said, looping her arms through Will and Nico's. 'We gotta get out of here.'

She led them down the tunnel Geras had pointed out.

'Thalia,' Nico gasped as they ran, 'you didn't seriously give him—'

'Of course not.' They were far enough down the tunnel that the orange glow of Geras's cavern was no longer visible behind them. She slowed to a jog. 'Six years as a tree, remember? What good were they ever going to do me?' She pictured Geras's outrage when he found himself staring at a solid pine tree. Serve him right, the old creep.

Will laughed. 'Apollo's hymns, that's brilliant!' He sobered quickly. 'You still look older, though. Not _old_ -old like Geras made us, but like a grown-up.'

 _Six years,_ thought Thalia. She'd look twenty-one. Way too old to be Hunter. What was Artemis going to say?

Maybe she'd have to go join Reyna's sister and the Amazons. What would Reyna think of that?

'Never mind that,' she said. It wasn't something she could worry about now. 'We have to find Percy and Annabeth. And I have a feeling that the edge of Chaos is exactly where they'll end up, too.'

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

 **A/N** : Geras is another one of the gods that got a cameo in _HoH_.

Note to **CupcakeQueen816** : I'm thrilled you liked the last chapter so much! It was really my baby. Well, that and the next one to come, which will be back on the main story. (Sorry this posting format may be a bit confusing, I wasn't sure how I could do it otherwise, since I didn't want to disrupt the flow of the main story, but also doesn't allow the same content posted twice so I couldn't simply copy the entire story over with only one changed chapter!)


	2. Chapter 14

**A/N** : This is a 'clean' version of chapter 14 of the Curse of Lethe, specially for **CupcakeQueen816** and any of my readers who are uncomfortable with reading material of a higher rating.

 **XIV**

 **NICO**

Nico couldn't stop shivering.

He'd always avoided small spaces since he'd been trapped in Otis and Ephialtes' bronze jar, and Arachne's spider silk prison was a considerably tighter fit than the jar. Even after he was freed, he couldn't shake off the claustrophobic way the fibres had closed in on him, wrapping him progressively tighter in their iron grip.

And then there were their new companions. Percy and Annabeth were clearly overjoyed at Bob and Damasen's appearance. Nico knew he should be, too—Bob had been a long-time friend, one of the few he'd had in those lonely years between losing Bianca and finding Hazel—but the 'welcome back' he offered the Titan tasted like bile in his mouth.

Twice, now, Bob had come when someone had needed him. But why had he never come for Nico?

'Nico, friend,' Bob said in his rumbling voice, 'you are not good?'

'I'm fine.' Nico pushed the bitterness down. _Stop being petty,_ he told himself.

 _Oh, but you always knew how to bear even the most trifling grudges! How many people have you blamed for things they couldn't control?_ The wailing souls in the Acheron gleefully supplied him with examples of all the times he'd lashed out with anger. At Percy. At Annabeth. At Jason. The list went on. _Your heart is full of hatred. You're no better than us._

 _Shut up,_ Nico told them silently.

Will looked at him sharply. Obviously he didn't believe for a second Nico was fine, but he didn't push it.

'How did you and Damasen make it out of Chaos?' Annabeth asked. 'We hoped you would, but we didn't really know if it was actually possible.'

'Hm,' said Bob. He scratched his scruffy silver beard. 'Stars called our names.'

Damasen held out a twisted bundle of rope wound with a few silver arrows: the lines they'd left dangling into the pit of Chaos after pulling Percy and Annabeth up.

'You called for us in the dark of Night, Annabeth Chase,' he said. 'You called us back to who we were. Who we chose to be.'

'We chose us,' Bob said.

'You chose your own fate,' Annabeth translated.

'When we chose to fight by your side, it gave us an identity that was foreign to Tartarus. It gave us an identity to hold on to even in Chaos.'

Bob nodded. 'Tartarus could not collect our souls for his armour after all.'

Annabeth looked like there was more she wanted to ask about this, but she just said, 'Will you come with us now, then?'

'You picked a dangerous path, demigods,' Damasen said solemnly. 'The Caves of Night are not meant to be traversed by mortals.'

'We didn't have a choice,' Thalia said. 'And we're stronger than you think.'

'Perhaps. But what lies in these caves are not things that can be defeated by physical strength alone.' His eyes fell on Nico. 'I think you know this, young son of Hades.'

Nico looked away.

'Do you know another way, then?' Annabeth said hopefully. 'We have to get to the heart of Tartarus. The sooner the better.'

Bob and Damasen looked at each other.

'Caves are fastest,' Bob said. 'But full of spirits. They do not disturb Titans. I do not know if your minds can withstand it.'

'I've made it past them,' Nico said. 'Mimas brought me through these caves.'

Six pairs of eyes fixed on him curiously. Nico wanted to sink back into the shadows. He'd never spoken of this before. Not to Reyna, not to Will, not even to Hazel, to whom he'd outlined the essentials of his experience right after he'd gotten out of Tartarus the previous time.

No one knew how he'd been tricked by the crafty giant Mimas into thinking he'd found the Doors, only to tumble down a black chute, straight into the bowels of Tartarus. Or how Mimas and his band of gigantes had bound him and marched him through these caves before handing him over to the twin giants and their bronze jar.

He'd managed for years to suppress the visions that the cruel deities in the Caves of Night had presented him. But now he was back on the doorstep of those spirits, with the nightmares so close, they took no effort to recall.

'The spawn of Nyx make their homes in these caves,' Nico explained. 'We've only scratched the surface of it. She birthed all the primordial spirits that personify the darkest evils. Pandora's _pithos_ , the jar that released those evils into the world—it was filled here.'

'Just more demons to fight, then,' Thalia said.

Nico wanted to smack the confidence off her freckled face. 'You don't understand,' he said flatly. 'They make you see—see things.'

They weren't things he could find words for. How could he possibly explain how the spirits of Nyx had taunted him and put his innermost feelings on display?

Once, he'd hoped that he could have shared his story with Percy and Annabeth. Then he'd realised their experience was different. No one who had never encountered the Caves of Night could possibly understand how it felt to come through them. The way they turned all your secrets and fears against you so that they cut you like a knife?

 _You will always be alone, Nico di Angelo. Who would ever love you?_

He remembered begging for mercy while Mimas howled with glee. In the end, Otis and Ephialtes hadn't needed to stuff him in the bronze jar. He'd crawled in by himself, broken and desperate to escape the horrors. The soundproof jar had given him a brief respite from Mimas's horror show, before he'd realised that in his weakness, he'd been enticed into another trap.

Even after Percy and the others had rescued him from the bronze jar, it had been a long, lonely time before he could repress the echoes of everything he'd heard in the caves. If he were perfectly honest, he'd never really forgotten any of it.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Expecting Will and not wanting his pity, he tried to shrug it away. But Annabeth's grip was firm.

'I remember Mimas. How he plays on your emotions,' she said. 'It's awful. I hated it, too. But he's not here now. And you are. You were strong enough to survive it once, and that's why you knew you could get us through again. You led us this far, Nico. We trust you. And we're in this together.'

 _You will always be alone._

Nico shook the voice out of his head again. He put his hand on top of Annabeth's. She smiled and squeezed his shoulder once, then let go.

'We will help to keep the spirits from attacking physically,' Damasen said. 'But their powers are beyond our control. Many have been driven mad by what they show—even the lesser monsters dare not venture here.'

'Take them spirally,' Bob suggested.

Damasen's rust-coloured eyes blinked slowly. 'Yes, that is a possibility.'

'Where are we going?' Annabeth asked. 'Will it still get us to the heart of Tartarus?'

'A small detour,' Bob promised. 'A rest stop.'

'With luck,' Damasen added, 'it will give some peace after…'

'Rest stop sounds good,' said Percy.

With Bob and Damasen in the lead, they plunged forward into the red-tinged darkness of the caves. The Acheron followed them at first, in a crescendo of wailing souls that soon reached a frenetic pitch of agony.

 _Suffer with us, Nico di Angelo!_ they screamed in his mind. _Why should you escape punishment for your crimes?_

Bianca sizzled up in a storm of electricity, clutching the tiny figurine of their father. Percy and Annabeth slipped from his hand and fell away into endless darkness. Bryce Lawrence faded into black obscurity. Octavian exploded in a firestorm.

Nico gritted his teeth until the insistent cries of ' _Your fault! All your fault!_ ' finally dulled to an accusing murmur when their path split from the river. The others wore varied expressions of relief at the reprieve, but Nico knew the Acheron's torments were child's play compared to what lay ahead of them.

They didn't have to wait long. A loud clang greeted them at an otherwise innocuous junction. Sprouting from an outcrop of rock was the upper body of a girl with ashen skin and cymbals in place of hands. Her hair grew in two plaited bundles that ended in thick, grey bobs. These beat against the cave walls in time with her clashing cymbal hands to create a booming rhythm that reverberated through Nico's whole body.

Her lips stretched into a wicked smile. Although she didn't speak, a dull whisper rose out of the darkness: 'What have we here?'

The last word echoed down the tunnels like a doorbell alerting the cave dwellers to their arrival. As it grew louder, the speaker fluttered down from the ceiling. She landed in front of Nico, her bat wings curving back around a golden trumpet that hung over her shoulder.

'I thought I heard visitors,' she hissed. Across her body, dozens of wagging tongues took up the chant: _Visitors, visitors, VISITORS._ Purple eyes dotted her feathery skin, running along her arms and torso. She had more ears than Nico could count: at least three pairs on her head alone, and more sprouting from her sides.

' _All the better to hear you with,_ ' one of her tongues told Nico.

Bob stepped in front of her. 'They're with us, Pheme,' he said.

Pheme laughed. 'I don't touch, Titan. I merely spread the news— _all_ the news.' Her mouth curved viciously. 'And my siblings don't need to touch your… _friends_ —' the word dripped with innuendo—'to devour them.'

'Keep moving,' Damasen ordered. 'Pheme spreads hearsay—her words travel like wildfire. The others will descend shortly. Bob and I will guard you, but we cannot carry you through if you stop.'

Passing Pheme was like walking through a high school hallway under the judgemental eyes of the entire student body. Gossip spewed from her numerous tongues, a flurry of speculation and recrimination.

 _That's the new kid. The weird one with the foreign accent._

 _He's not one of us._

The rumours grew more pointed, turning into barbed accusations about his personal life. It was just as Nico remembered from his first passage through this place—his secrets tossed around and dissected in persistent whispers that grew louder by the second.

 _I heard he's got a crush on Percy Jackson—like he'd ever have a chance!_

It had been bad enough the first time, with Pheme whispering his own shameful feelings into his ears. Now his old fears about coming out were on display again, only this time four other people—six if you counted Bob and Damasen—were privy to them, too. Even though it was no longer a big secret that he was gay, the torments he had endured while coming to terms with it were _his_. It was just like when Eros had laid him bare before Jason, forcing confessions from him that he hadn't been ready to give.

Even if his friends accepted him, it didn't mean he was comfortable having his intimate feelings on display. And the spirit of gossip and rumour was only the tip of the iceberg. The spirits who had been waiting in the wings burst forth, alerted by Pheme's herald. The personification of each of the seven sins gathered, projecting a movie of damnation onto the cave walls, starring Nico in the leading role.

In a mad fury, he raised a skeleton army that slashed its way through Camp Half-Blood, leaving every camper dead at his feet.

He sat on an obsidian throne before a fire that grew from a pile of bones—souls he had sacrificed on the pyre—while the spirit of Bianca rose from the earth, cursing him for calling her back this way.

Will held his face as they kissed; Nico's cheek's burned knowing that everyone could watch this private moment. And then the Will in the picture pushed him away and melted into a crowd of faces that were all contorted in identical disgust.

Nico wanted to curl into a ball and block everything out.

More spirits joined the fray: Apate, goddess of deceit, catalogued every lie he'd ever told— _who could ever trust you after that?_ Momus, god of mockery, started up a litany of criticism against him— _creepy, antisocial, a freak of nature._ Oizys, goddess of depression, prophesied a hopeless future for him.

 _You're despicable. Worthless. Unlovable. You will always be alone, Nico di Angelo._

How many times had he hidden himself away, believing those very words? Even before he'd ever encountered Oizys and the others, loneliness had practically been part of his identity—Nico di Angelo, the different one, the rejected one. It had been all too easy for the spirits of Night to turn his mind to despair. He'd already been halfway there.

'He's not alone!' Will's voice was weak and shaky, but it pierced the cloak of anguish that Oizys drew over Nico.

Something stirred in Nico's memory.

 _'That's the problem with you,' Will scolded. 'You leave because you believe everyone is gonna reject you, even if they haven't. Maybe if you stayed, you'd find out that you're_ not _alone.'_

His eyes flew open.

'Nico, you were never alone. You—'

Will was cut off by a harsh whisper, although this one was softer, and Nico didn't understand the accusation: ' _You flit from one handsome boy to another. Who can trust your pretty words when you speak them to everyone?_ '

Will made a choking noise and raised his hands to cover his ears. Nico understood then: it was Will the spirits were targeting. And maybe it was true, to some extent—his boyfriend was annoyingly prone to 'appreciating the scenery'—but Nico was surprised that Will secretly despised his own flirtatious nature. Not when it was essentially harmless—when it was so obvious that at his core lay a loyal heart.

Nico's eyes and ears were now open to all the painful secrets that were playing on the caves' cinema of shame. Percy and Annabeth facing off in a fierce argument. Thalia's fingers twined around those of a certain Roman ex-Praetor. Will shook the body of a boy Nico didn't know, crying freely. Whether the images were real or imagined, Nico wasn't sure. It didn't matter—they were devised to strike where it cut the deepest.

And just as he'd been overwhelmed by the intensity of his own anguish, his friends were each stuck in the quagmire of theirs.

Confronted with the image of himself standing on a blood-soaked battlefield, Will trembled even harder than Nico had when he'd emerged from his spider prison. Percy stared in horror at a picture of himself at the vortex of a hurricane that consumed the world. Tears ran down Annabeth's face as she watched herself fall from a glittering masterpiece of a monument, dragging her friends with her as she tumbled from the spires towards a pit of fire. Thalia's fingernails dug into her cheeks at the sight of a car smashing into a tree, the driver—who had spiky black hair like hers—slumped against the steering wheel.

Playing across this was a soundtrack of assassinations. Oizys called Will a coward and a weakling. Momus mocked Annabeth's ambitions. Pheme teased Thalia about her forbidden crush.

'I'm not alone,' Nico whispered. And he wasn't. They all had emotions they were ashamed of. They all had parts of themselves they wanted to bury where they would never see daylight—in the Caves of Night.

And watching some of his friends' twisted nightmares brought to life, he realised many of those things weren't unique to him after all.

'Nico, friend!' Bob urged. 'You must keep moving.'

Bob held his broom in front of him, crossed with Damasen's large stick to form an 'X' that kept the spirits physically at bay, like they'd promised. The sabre-tooth tiger prowled at Bob's heels, baring its teeth and snapping whenever a spirit got too close. But as Damasen had warned, they could not ward away the dark emotions the spirits had unleashed. Nor could they carry the demigods through the cave.

They had to pull themselves out of this.

'Will.' Nico placed his hands firmly on his boyfriend's shoulder. 'Remember how you ran into a Roman camp—into a whole freaking legion trained for war—with only two kids as back-up? That took guts.'

'I—'

'I don't care if you appreciate a decent hottie. Maybe you can even tell me who you find cute at Camp Jupiter and we'll compare notes when we get out of here. But we have to get out first. So snap out of it.'

Will raised his head. Tears clung to his eyelashes. Nico wanted to kiss them away. Instead, he lifted Will's arm and pressed his lips to the battle scar there. 'Listen to me. It's gonna be okay.'

'I think that's my line,' Will said. It was a weak attempt at a joke and the laugh that accompanied it was thin and forced. Still, it was there. Will grimaced at the images still playing on the cave walls. 'I told you you weren't alone.'

'You were right.'

Will went to help Annabeth, who was curled up in a ball of misery. Nico moved on to Thalia.

Her eyes were fixed on a parade of people Apate accused her of abandoning— _You led them to believe you cared, and what did you do?_ —while Pheme cackled for everyone to hear, _You've got a crush on a girl, an outsider, haven't you? Just wait till this gets back to your Hunters!_ Oizys foretold misery in her dolorous voice: _It will never work; no one shall heal your immortal heart._

Nico wasn't sure where to start. It wasn't like he knew Thalia all that well.

He did know Reyna, though, and he was reasonably sure that was who Thalia secretly liked. He decided to start there.

'I got to know Reyna a lot when we were travelling together. I think you'd match, like Percy and Annabeth do. You guys could work.'

Thalia glowered at Nico. 'You don't know anything,' she snapped. 'Butt out! I don't need advice on my love life. Which I don't have.'

Her rebuttal sounded extremely familiar. Nico wondered where he'd come across the sentiment before. Then he remembered.

Diocletian's Palace.

Nico had pushed Jason's acceptance away when he'd first offered it. When you were convinced that something you felt was wrong, it was hard to believe that someone else might be willing to embrace it.

'Did you know your brother was the first person I came out to?' Well, he'd actually been forced to come out to Jason by a bully of a love god, but that wasn't really the point now. 'He was really decent about it. He let me decide when I wanted to tell anyone else. Even told me I was brave, though I sure as Hades didn't think so. We didn't talk about it, but having him know my secret and not judge it—I started thinking maybe it'd be okay to tell people after that.'

'Jason's a good kid,' Thalia said. Her eyes darted back to the cave wall. A blond two-year-old with electric blue eyes—the only feature the Grace siblings shared—reached out for her as she walked away. 'I left him behind. I thought he was dead, but I shouldn't have believed my mom. I should have found him. I left her behind, too. I left so many people.' She turned back to Nico. 'I left Bianca in the junkyard of the gods.'

Nico swallowed hard. 'Maybe you did, but that wasn't your fault. And Bianca—she didn't blame you.'

Thalia was silent. Nico didn't know if he had gotten through to her, but at least she was no longer clawing at her cheeks. Meanwhile, Will had spoken to Annabeth and together, they had lifted Percy out of his nightmares.

'We need to keep moving,' Nico said to all of them.

Slowly, painfully, they did. The taunting of the spirits didn't get any easier to bear, but Nico urged the others on every time they flagged, beaten down by the whispers and visions. Damasen led them along a wet and boggy path that ran uphill, such that they were practically crawling away from the spirits that trailed behind them.

Finally, they entered a wide cavern that was covered in swampy marshland and lit by a bright blue flame on a central altar. The spirits hissed and fled back down the path they'd come. For the first time since entering the Caves of Night, everything was blissfully silent.

'Are we—out?' Annabeth's voice was thick with exhaustion.

Bob shook his head. 'Not yet. But this is a rest stop.'

'The shrine of Eleos,' Damasen announced. 'Goddess of compassion.'

The puddles beneath their feet stung when they splashed through. Nico could tell from the faint, woeful hum that the marsh was fed by the River of Acheron, but the waters that pooled here sounded more remorseful than tormented.

The shrine sat on a circle of hard rock, rising several inches above the marsh. Behind the altar was a temple with an entrance so low that Nico, who was the smallest of the group, would have to crouch to enter it.

'Is the goddess here?' Will asked as they approached. 'Should we, um, make a sacrifice?'

'She won't appear,' said a soft voice. A tiny girl dressed in peacock blue emerged from the temple. A thin veil obscured her face. 'She has rarely stirred since the days of Athens.' The girl placed her palm on the altar. 'The world is somewhat lacking in compassion these days.'

'Is that why her shrine fell to Tartarus?' Thalia asked. Maybe she was thinking of Geras, ousted and banished when old age became reviled.

'It has always been here,' Damasen said. 'Eleos is a child of Nyx. A disappointment, rather like myself. I chose peace instead of war. She gives respite to the weary instead of suffering.'

'Yes,' said the girl in blue. 'I am her attendant. Eons ago, I was brought here on the Acheron. I have tended the shrine ever since.' She inclined her head towards Nico. 'Do you remember me, Nico di Angelo?'

'Er, no. Sorry. I don't think I've been here before.'

'No,' sighed the girl. 'No, you have not. But I touched your mind. I gave you peace.'

With her palms facing up, she spread her fingers towards the cavern ceiling. A sprinkle of water fell out of nowhere. Tiny droplets landed on their heads, as cool and refreshing as summer rain.

Nico remembered then the same touch during his first, despairing crawl through the Caves of Night. A brief respite, not enough to undo the damage of the spirits, but just enough to hold his mind together. It was a baptism of mercy, descending when he had needed it most.

 _This_ was the true nepenthe, a more powerful restorative than any potion they could ever manage to brew.

This girl had given it to him and he hadn't even known.

'Why?' he asked her. 'Why did you help me?'

'Perhaps because I, too, am a child of the Underworld. Perhaps as a child with two fathers, I empathised with your pain. Or perhaps it was because we share a name.'

She lifted her veil.

Her eyes burned with the same bright blue flame that lit the altar. In their flicker, Nico could sense the mark of their father—a half-crazed spark that hinted at wild ideas and intense emotion. 'I am the daemon Angelos.'

'Wait,' said Percy, scratching his head. 'What do you mean two fathers?'

Annabeth elbowed him. 'Isn't it obvious?'

'Well, yeah, I get that she's got two dads. I was just wondering, if Hades is one of them, who's the other?'

Nico nearly rolled his eyes—Percy's blunt nature became less appealing the older Nico got—but he found he was actually curious about the answer. He knew by now that the gods weren't as straight-laced as the 1930s society in which he'd grown up (or even certain communities in the twenty-first century), but he'd never suspected his father of having a fluid sexual orientation. Apollo, sure—there couldn't be any immortal more flamboyantly bi than Will's dad. Hades, on the other hand, always struck Nico as old-fashioned, both in his tastes and his morals.

Then again, if ancient Greece had accepted alternative sexuality, that would make the attitudes of the current millennia new rather than old.

'Hermes,' Angelos said carelessly, ignoring the stunned expressions around her. 'I have also been called Angelia—daemon of messages and tidings. It's been a while since I've had anyone to proclaim to, though. And on that note—hang on for a second.'

She disappeared into her temple and came back out with a bowl in one hand and a looking glass in the other. She placed the bowl on the altar and motioned for them to gather around her.

'Your friends on the surface await you,' she said, pointing into the mirror. The reflective glass shimmered and resolved into a pretty, tanned face with kaleidoscope eyes.

'Piper!' said Annabeth.

'Annabeth?' Oh my gods, you can hear me? Are you okay? Is everyone there? No, wait, I can see them, too—what's happening?'

'We're fine—well, maybe not _fine_ , we're still in Tartarus, but we're all here and we're alive, and we're headed for—'

The serious, square jaw of Jason Grace pushed into the frame. 'Is everyone okay? Did you save Percy?'

'Hey bro,' said Percy.

'Thank the gods—wait, you remember me?'

'I even remember our last bet about where Nico would spend the year. You owe me fifty bucks, dude.'

' _Excuse_ me?' Nico interrupted.

'Damn, if there was one good thing about you losing your memory—'

Annabeth cleared her throat. 'Can we talk about how we're getting _out_ of here first?'

A sheepish grin spread across Jason's face. 'I'll go get the others,' he said. He disappeared, but they could hear him shouting, 'Guys! Piper's got Percy and the others in her dagger!'

'The others,' huffed Thalia. 'Good to see you, too, little bro.'

'We've found Thanatos,' Piper said. 'Leo and Reyna got us transport and we're on our way. We'll get the Doors of Death to you by tomorrow, we promise!'

'That's good,' Annabeth said. 'We're headed to the heart—well, where we're pretty sure the Doors will show up, anyway.'

'So, say, twenty-four hours?'

Annabeth looked at Bob. 'Can we do it?'

'Time is difficult in Tartarus,' Bob admitted. 'But I think yes.'

'Twenty-four hours,' Annabeth told Piper.

'I'll keep looking in Katoptris, anyway,' Piper said. 'It's been showing me—well, I was really worried for a while. But it's so good to see that you're okay. I really—'

Her image froze like a bad FaceTime connection. The mirror went black. Angelos tapped at it, then shrugged. 'I may have forgotten to charge it. Like I said, it's been a while.'

'It's fine,' Annabeth said. 'We know we have twenty-four hours to get to the heart of Tartarus.'

Angelos considered this. 'You are close,' she said. 'Do not rush to your destination. More challenges await you. You will need to rest to face them. For a sacrifice, you may rest here at the shrine.'

'What sort of sacrifice?' Percy asked warily.

'Cloth and hair, Angelos said. She smiled at the surprise on their faces. 'It is how Eleos has always been honoured.'

She indicated the bowl she had laid upon the altar. Nico, Percy, and Annabeth drew their swords. They each sliced off a section of their hair, along with some cloth from their shirt sleeves. Angelos emptied their offerings into the blue flame, which shone white for a few seconds. Another light sprinkle of cleansing rain showered down, returning the fire to its original blue.

'Eleos accepts your offering,' Angelos announced. Five sleeping bags popped out of the swamp. They were only standard-issue camping gear, but right now they looked as inviting as a luxury hotel bed.

Angelos looked apologetically at Bob and Damasen. 'I'm afraid we aren't set up for Titans and such.'

Damasen shrugged. 'We will keep watch,' he said.

'I will leave you to your rest,' Angelos said. 'But first, I shall bear you each a tiding.'

She turned first to Bob and Damasen. 'When it comes to a choice between choosing who you are and letting the world dictate your identity, remember that archetypes may survive indefinitely, but immortality has its drawbacks.'

Angelos looked at Thalia next. 'Moving on is not the same as leaving someone behind. If you do not wish to remain motionless, you must accept what is in your heart.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Thalia demanded.

'I bear the messages,' Angelos said impassively. 'I do not interpret them. That's up to _you._ '

She inclined her head towards Annabeth. 'Many a prophecy has hinged upon you. Now your ingenuity will be called upon yet again. It will be up to you to ensure the pattern no longer repeats.'

Annabeth's eyes widened. Percy's hand tightened around hers.

'And you have changed much in your time here,' Angelos continued, addressing Percy. 'It has shaped you, and you will shape the journey—what you have been seeking will be at the heart of it.'

From the blank look on his face, this was as much a mystery to Percy as it was to Nico.

To Will, Angelos said, 'The light shines brighter when it emerges from darkness. Do not be afraid to embrace the darkness within you.'

Finally, she held Nico's gaze. 'Your struggles are a gift. You understand compassion because you understand pain. Don't bury it away again, little brother.'

Angelos looked nothing like his sister, but at that moment it was Bianca's ghostly face he saw, shining with fierce, determined pride.

 _Don't hide from the world, little brother. Live. Make me proud._

It had taken him a long time to internalise Bianca's parting words. Even now he wasn't sure he'd managed to live as she'd asked him to.

They took their sleeping bags and settled in for the night. Nico pulled his over to Will.

'Hey,' Will said. 'Some trek, huh?' He gave a shaky laugh. 'I—I have to apologise, Nico. I'm an idiot. I actually thought coming back down here would help you. I thought you _needed_ to face it again. If I'd known…' He shuddered, probably remembering the images they'd just scene in the Caves of Night. 'I tried to force you to deal with things my way. I'm sorry.'

'No, you were right. I think I get it. The reason why Tartarus is so awful is because it's made of our own darkness. Like—gods, I don't know how to explain this properly. I always zone out when Chiron talks about it.'

'Like how the gods are part of the collective unconscious?' Will suggested. 'They embody what we believe.'

'Exactly. It's all the worst stuff we believe about ourselves.'

'I don't know how anyone _wouldn't_ go crazy confronting that,' Will mused.

'Unless they knew they weren't the only ones with problems.' Nico twisted the skull ring on his finger. 'I should have realised we all had stuff we couldn't talk about … you, too, I guess.'

Will attempted a smile. 'It was the Battle of the Labyrinth,' he said softly. 'The first time I'd ever seen so much death. All those friends I couldn't save…'

'It wasn't your fault.'

'I know. But I never stopped feeling guilty. I never told you because—well, you've got so much sadness already. I didn't want to add to it.'

'You're not. It—it's actually easier knowing we both have sadness in our lives.'

Their eyes met and they started to laugh.

'I guess we should've depended on each other more,' Will said.

'If I've learned anything from passing through the Caves of Night twice, it's that it's easier to be strong for someone else than for yourself.'

Will touched his cheek. 'You are incredibly strong, Nico di Angelo.'

Nico kissed him. 'We can be strong together.'

Nico imagined the goddess Eleos drawing a gentle blanket of mercy over them while Angelos tucked them into a bed of compassion. With his head nestled against his boyfriend's shoulder, he finally fell asleep.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

 **A/N** : I went all out with the spirits in this chapter. I figured, why not make use of the insanely many that Greek mythology has to offer? Of course, I embellished a lot, but hey, RR gave us a great example of how to make up stories for the Greek myths, right?

 **CupcakeQueen816** , I hope this didn't get too dark! This one was harder to 'lighten up' than the other chapter (talk about a flood of angst) without losing the essential subplot, but I think I managed it ... hope I did, anyway! Thanks for your last review. Speculating is so fun! I don't think you need to be an American citizen to get a driver's license in America? Well, I'm not American, nor have I ever lived in America, so you'll have to educate me on that, but I had a friend (also not American) who moved there when she was 15 and learned to drive there at 16, so I'm basing my knowledge off that. Also, believe me, the amount of stuff I look up while speculating about characters and what they could reasonably do ... you're not alone! (Would you believe I researched flying lessons, architectural summer schools, and boarding school structures in the States just to write the next DoW fic? I bet Google believes I'm looking to enrol a kid in either a Brooklyn boarding school or San Francisco design school at this stage.)

And as promised-the giftfic offer! ( **CupcakeQueen816** , I did get your request and I'm so sorry I didn't make it clearer that I meant to post the request format this week after I'd had a think of what I needed ... I guess I can put what you gave me into this format myself if you don't really want to repeat yourself. Sorry!)

So here's how this works. If you would like to receive a mini ficlet for Christmas/New Year (or whatever holiday you celebrate, or if you don't celebrate anything, fun free present!) send a request my way. You can leave this as a review, or send me a PM, or if you want to track me down elsewhere, I'm also on LiveJournal (shiiki or shiikifics) and tumblr (dotshiiki). Here's what to leave in the request:

(Stuff I need to know)

Characters: [ _list the characters you want in the ficlet, 1-3 works best; bear in mind that more than that can be pretty tough to pull off in a short ficlet!_ ]

Prompt: [ _this can be anything from a specific scenario you'd like to see (e.g. 'Percy and Annabeth visit an aquarium and adopt a pet fish') to a few lines you want included in a fic (e.g. some dialogue), or just a few prompt words (e.g. 'silver', 'rainbows', 'waves' etc. etc.) ... basically something I can use for inspiration_ ]*

(Optional stuff)

Pairings: [ _if you want shipfic, give a pairing; otherwise, I'll probably make it genfic or background canon pairings_ ]*

Squicks: [ _stuff you really don't like to read about so I can avoid putting it in_ ]

Rating: [ _max rating you're comfortable with_ ]**

Fandom: [ _I'm assuming that those of you following my current fic are PJO fans, but I've also dabbled in plenty of other fandoms (I'll include a non-exhaustive list on my profile page) and am happy to branch out if that's your thing. As long as it's something I know well enough, just give me the characters and I'll see what I can do!_ ]

*Note-I'm really bad at writing pairings that contradict canon pairings, so although I'm not going to say no to those because hey, challenge! ... if you want something like Jason/Annabeth, prepare to have it turn out not exactly as you expected (i.e. short on the romance).

**Another note-I'm not writing anything over an M rating. Though if you're reading this version of CoL, I doubt this is even an issue :)

And that's it! I'll keep a list of the requests I get (if I get any at all, lol) on my profile page so you can see if yours got through. Gift ficlets will probably be around 500 words (any longer depends on the muse). And that's my Christmas gift to fandom and especially those of you who have brightened my day by being willing to interact with me and my stories!


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